Turn 31

[zeit]

DeepO, how did our complain fare last time?

i remind you- we were pretty much ignored and disregarded up until Vox decided that they were safe enough with their gains (blocking the Isthmus, having scouts in our land) and reconsidered- probably realizing they need to cooperate to peacefully grab that land which they recently found.

Re: blocking- yes we can, there is a 2 tile wide neck which our two warriors can block.

And a question: did Vox retreated it's warriors south of the isthmus, or its blockade? I think not, but i am astonished at your willingness to trust their motives and ignore the ovious state of hidden tension and hostility between us.

[nbarclay]

The wildcard in this is the fact that unless BetaHound misspoke (miswrote?), Vox is connected to other land besides ours, land they have told us nothing about. We can't even begin to analyze what constitutes fair borders and what constitutes Vox taking away land that should be ours until we know more about that other direction.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by nbarclay
The wildcard in this is the fact that unless BetaHound misspoke (miswrote?), Vox is connected to other land besides ours, land they have told us nothing about. We can't even begin to analyze what constitutes fair borders and what constitutes Vox taking away land that should be ours until we know more about that other direction.

Very good point.

Would it be suprising if they cut a deal with the north, that they would each civ would settle southward, thus hampering our expansion? not really to me. As long as they don't trade their minimap, I don't trust them one bit. and then, only a little.

[Dominae]

I'm not sure I agree with all this talk about "our land", "staking claims" and "rightful ownership". From a rules perspective, the only land this is truly ours is within out borders. Anything else is by contract. So saying that the Voxians have no right to certain pieces of land in case they can access others doesn't make sense. We can say amongst ourselves that the southern continent is ours, but this will only be true once we actually settle it. If we want to prevent Vox from settling certain areas (or want to grant them some of "ours"), this is a pure desire on our part, so we cannot appeal to any authority ("You're expanding towards us...that's not fair!").

Edit: Imagine if the geography didn't seperate us into such distanct areas, like on a Pangea map. How would we then decide what is ours and theirs? By agreement.

Let us not be angry or suprised when Vox starts settling the isthmus and south of it. If they get there first, that's all there is to it. Even if they can expand in another direction (and even if we know about it), it is strategically smart from them to expand towards us. It is not an act of war, unless we deem it to be, in which case it is our problem.


Dominae

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Dominae

Let us not be angry or suprised when Vox starts settling the isthmus and south of it. If they get there first, that's all there is to it. Even if they can expand in another direction (and even if we know about it), it is strategically smart from them to expand towards us. It is not an act of war, unless we deem it to be, in which case it is our problem.

If the economic disparity is as big as it looks like it will be, if we deem their focusing their expansion toward us as an act of war, it is very much their problem. One of the rules of the game is, "If you get there first, it's yours." But another is, "It's only yours for as long as you can hold it."

Nathan

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
If the economic disparity is as big as it looks like it will be, if we deem their focusing their expansion toward us as an act of war, it is very much their problem. One of the rules of the game is, "If you get there first, it's yours." But another is, "It's only yours for as long as you can hold it."

True. My point is that we have no diplomatic reason to accuse them of being aggressive if they expand towards us. So, if were are to be friendly, trustworthy and non-hypocritical, we cannot complain to them when they settle "our" lands. Consequently, I do not see settling the Wheat/Fish spot an act of aggression on our part, either


Dominae

[Theseus]

I wouldn't worry about it in any case... we plan 12-13 towns below the jungle, which will be a platform for controlling anything we want.

[Harovan]

The corrected save has arrived, of course 5 minutes after I arrived at work. If you're still up, Nathan, play the turn. Or else I will, in approximately 9 hours.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by zeit
DeepO, how did our complain fare last time?

i remind you- we were pretty much ignored and disregarded up until Vox decided that they were safe enough with their gains (blocking the Isthmus, having scouts in our land) and reconsidered- probably realizing they need to cooperate to peacefully grab that land which they recently found.

Re: blocking- yes we can, there is a 2 tile wide neck which our two warriors can block.

And a question: did Vox retreated it's warriors south of the isthmus, or its blockade? I think not, but i am astonished at your willingness to trust their motives and ignore the ovious state of hidden tension and hostility between us.

Well, you're partially rigth. I am annoyed at how Vox is handling its diplo relations, and how unstable they seem to be. I would rather have any other team near us, even GoW would probably be better.

But, whatever they do or didn't do, my thoughts aren't focused on giving them a good and easy time, they are focused on being as benefical for us as possible. And I believe that for the moment, we need a trade partner, who will trust us. If this means we can't block them, as it will surely annoy them, we simply can't block them (which is what I meant, I know there is a 2-tile Isthmus very close by)

Indeed, it's quite obvious there is a lot of tension between our two teams, but that's no problem. It will always stay there, as with this attitude Vox is probably not going to end the game. I acknowledge that, but it doesn't mean we can't pretend it's not there in our diplo contacts... I said earlier that no way are they going to get their claims on the land simply because they said so first, or even were closer to their capital, if they build a city threre first, it's theirs.

Re: retracting scouts: they moved them back farther away as we asked for. Okay, maybe there are hidden reasons, maybe they were just stupid and didn't understood what we offered, but they retracted farther then us. I don't want to retract farther (as we need to see what they are up to), but we don't need to demand that they move their scouts all the way up, let them watch us, we'll be watching them.

DeepO

[Harovan]

Playing the turn now.

Trade accepted, we have Bronze Working. Grog and Slash move at the Lookout Ridge. Hack goes 8, looking for the disappeared Tim and finds him east (6) of his new position. Ouch follows Willy 8. Hurricane builds Warrior ("Zonk"), who heads to EotS. Hurricane switches to Worker. EotS continues to build Settler and will grow next turn to size 5. Researching Alphabet, 13/120 beakers done.

Everyone happy?

[Dominae]

Sorry if this was answered on another thread, but do we know what Vox is researching?


Dominae

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Dominae
Sorry if this was answered on another thread, but do we know what Vox is researching?

Sounds good. Sorry I wasn't in a position to play the turn last night. (There are actually other complications involved than just whether I'm awake, but I'd rather not go into that.)

Vox indicated a couple turns or so back that they're working on researching Pottery and asked us whether we might be interested in trading for it. Given how long Iron Working presumably would have taken them, they almost have to still be working on that.

Nathan

[Harovan]

Team scores:

60 (+1) Gathering Storm
70 (+2) Demogyptica
61 (+1) Glory of War
66 (+2) Role Play
59 (+1) Vox Controli
53 (+1) Lux Invicta
66 (+1) Legoland

[Harovan]

Turn sent. Screeshots (zoom, power, f11) soon.

[DeepO]

F11: Vox just hit size 2. Which means their first settler is going to be ready in 10 turns, the Isthmus city probably build in 12. I hope they don't have bonusses in their second city, so that their growth will be limited, otherwise we might expect another settler in some 13 turns.

Power gets a small advantage for us, but we built a warrior. It can't be that Vox has build one too, so the only explanation would be that they are saving on gold. Hmmm... would they save gold for a sure attack they already planned, or would they simply put some aside for defense reasons?

DeepO